Traditionally, the festival has encouraged a number of pop culture announcements, controversial speeches, and typical Austin strangeness. Alongside a speech given by former Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, and a secret screening of T2: Trainspotting, came a very special announcement from Game of Thrones writers, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

Sheeran is a favourite of actress, Maisie Williams. “For years we were trying to get Ed Sheeran on the show to surprise Maisie and this year we finally did it,” Benioff said.

The ‘Shape Of You’ singer’s role hasn’t yet been announced, but he’s already filmed his scenes, Weiss said.

We’ll have to just wait until the season kicks off to see what happens (our guess is he’ll be brutally murdered, as per every other character we’ve liked).

He will join a slew of previous guest stars, including Elyes Gabel, David Bradley and Essie Davis.

Benioff also confirmed the length of the final season:

“It’s only going to be six episodes for the final season. From the beginning we’ve wanted to tell a 70-hour movie. It will turn out to be a 73-hour movie, but it’s stayed relatively the same of having the beginning, middle and now we’re coming to the end.

It would have been really tough if we lost any core cast members along the way, I’m very happy we’ve kept everyone and we get to finish it the way we want to.”